Tech founders giving up control over their firms

For years, control was a way to protect themselves from pesky investors

For more than a decade, some of the best known technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Snap, have sold shares to the public while maintaining a corporate structure that allowed their founders to keep tight control over their companies.
 
For Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, it was a way to protect themselves from pesky investors interested in short-term gains, even as shareholder advocates blasted the arrangements for creating unaccountable leaders. Now Zynga, a once high-flying maker of popular internet games such as FarmVille and Words With Friends, has taken the unusual step of scrapping its founder-friendly structure — a change that